Alastor,
Your reply to my post is couched mostly in generalities and quite broad analogies, most of which have a 'common sense' element of truth to them, as such broad analogies must in order to be useful. Unfortunately, we are dealing with a specific statute here, not generalities. Consequently, perhaps you should read the statute in question. To help you get from the general to the specific, here is a quick summary from a couple of Washington lawyers published in an article in the WSJ...
"The law at issue here is the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which makes it a federal crime, in certain circumstances, to reveal the identity of a covert agent. According to the IIPA's legislative history, it was enacted precisely because the existing 1917 Espionage Act, while seemingly all-encompassing, was "inadequate" to the task. In filling this void with the IIPA, Congress also acknowledged the competing interests at stake -- balancing national security imperatives against free speech considerations. The law was not designed to shield the CIA or its employees from all public scrutiny or criticism, since it criminalizes only those disclosures which "clearly represent a conscious and pernicious effort to identify and expose agents with the intent to impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States."
Congress did not, as a result, forbid the identification of anyone serving in a "classified" status. Genuinely covert agents alone were to be protected -- "only those identities which it has determined to be absolutely necessary to protect for reasons of imminent danger to life or significant interference with vital intelligence activities." Thus, under the act, criminal sanctions can be imposed only if the identity revealed is (1) of someone whose status is classified and who is serving, or has served within five years, outside the U.S.; and (2) where the alleged leaker knows that the U.S. is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." Indeed, the carefully worded language reflects a clear congressional purpose to make this law the exclusive venue for punishing the disclosures of intelligence agents' identities -- removing this offense from the Espionage Act's purview altogether. (Any other interpretation would lead to an absurd result, making it easier to punish the leaking of an ostensibly classified U.S.-based CIA analyst than the outing of a genuinely at-risk covert operative overseas.)"
Link to source
Note the provision in the statute specifying that the U.S. is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States". Now consider the CIA actions in the matter, as detailed by a former chief counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee...
• First: The CIA sent her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger on a sensitive mission regarding WMD. He was to determine whether Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake, an essential ingredient for nonconventional weapons. However, it was Ms. Plame, not Mr. Wilson, who was the WMD expert. Moreover, Mr. Wilson had no intelligence background, was never a senior person in Niger when he was in the State Department, and was opposed to the administration's Iraq policy. The assignment was given, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee, at Ms. Plame's suggestion.
• Second: Mr. Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement, a mandatory act for the rest of us who either carry out any similar CIA assignment or who represent CIA clients.
• Third: When he returned from Niger, Mr. Wilson was not required to write a report, but rather merely to provide an oral briefing. That information was not sent to the White House. If this mission to Niger were so important, wouldn't a competent intelligence agency want a thoughtful written assessment from the "missionary," if for no other reason than to establish a record to refute any subsequent misrepresentation of that assessment? Because it was the vice president who initially inquired about Niger and the yellowcake (although he had nothing to do with Mr. Wilson being sent), it is curious that neither his office nor the president's were privy to the fruits of Mr. Wilson's oral report.
• Fourth: Although Mr. Wilson did not have to write even one word for the agency that sent him on the mission at taxpayer's expense, over a year later he was permitted to tell all about this sensitive assignment in the New York Times. For the rest of us, writing about such an assignment would mean we'd have to bring our proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board and spend countless hours arguing over every word to be published. Congressional oversight committees should want to know who at the CIA permitted the publication of the article, which, it has been reported, did not jibe with the thrust of Mr. Wilson's oral briefing. For starters, if the piece had been properly vetted at the CIA, someone should have known that the agency never briefed the vice president on the trip, as claimed by Mr. Wilson in his op-ed.
• Fifth: More important than the inaccuracies is the fact that, if the CIA truly, truly, truly had wanted Ms. Plame's identity to be secret, it never would have permitted her spouse to write the op-ed. Did no one at Langley think that her identity could be compromised if her spouse wrote a piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise? The obvious question a sophisticated journalist such as Mr. Novak asked after "Why did the CIA send Wilson?" was "Who is Wilson?" After being told by a still-unnamed administration source that Mr. Wilson's "wife" suggested him for the assignment, Mr. Novak went to Who's Who, which reveals "Valerie Plame" as Mr. Wilson's spouse.
• Sixth: CIA incompetence did not end there. When Mr. Novak called the agency to verify Ms. Plame's employment, it not only did so, but failed to go beyond the perfunctory request not to publish. Every experienced Washington journalist knows that when the CIA really does not want something public, there are serious requests from the top, usually the director. Only the press office talked to Mr. Novak.
• Seventh: Although high-ranking Justice Department officials are prohibited from political activity, the CIA had no problem permitting its deep cover or classified employee from making political contributions under the name "Wilson, Valerie E.," information publicly available at the FEC.
Link to source
Thus a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee (not some insta-pundit blogger) is saying that the CIA conduct in this matter is either a brilliant covert action against the White House or inept intelligence tradecraft. Now, tell me again, where is the crime?
Hope this helps your understanding of the matter.
My brother is a die-hard republican and he is someone who I would want on that jury, as he would vote based upon the facts.
